Ambivalence
by OneshotPrincess
Summary: The quickest, easiest way to show that your character is gravely ill is to have them cough heavily, spill blood and then zoom in while ominous music plays. It had started with a cough with him as well. Then came the other symptoms, then the hospital and a diagnosis. Souji knows he's dying. He knows he only has a year. He just can't bring himself to tell the others about it.
1. Prologue

**A/N:** Written for a prompt on the kink meme, the gist of which went like this: Souji is dying from a sickness and only has a year

* * *

It always starts with a cough, he muses, in the films and the books. The quickest, easiest way to show that your character is gravely ill is to have them cough heavily, spill blood and then zoom in while ominous music plays. It had started with a cough with him as well though far less dramatically. Then came the other symptoms, then the hospital and a diagnosis.

"Well if it is terminal then there's no point in us wasting money on useless treatments is there?" his mother had stated matter-of-factly. Souji remembers the doctor looking shocked at that. He remembers his father's disgruntled sigh. He remembers how, even after knowing exactly what his parents were like, it had still managed to hurt.

Given a fortnight to think it over, however, he had agreed with his mother. He doesn't really want to spend his last moments in a hospital bed. What would be the point of that? And when his mother had asked if he wanted to go abroad with them (with eyes that silently begged him to say no), he'd refused that too. He won't spend any more time with people who would see him as a chore, as a burden, than he has to.

The doctor had tried to convince them otherwise. _A year_ , he had said. _You'll only have a year at best._ That's fine, he had thought. He didn't want to die but he hadn't much felt like living either. Ambivalent, that's how he had felt about the whole issue. A year had seemed like plenty of time.

It doesn't feel like that anymore. It's not enough anymore. He has less than six months left and it's not _enough time._ He has so much left to do and he knows that he'll never get to do them. How ironic that the less time he has, the more he feels like living.

He hasn't told anyone here yet. At first it had been because he hadn't expected to become so close to anyone. Then it had been because, as Leader, he couldn't show any weakness (and he'd been scared, so scared that they'd stop depending on him if they found out how frail he really was) and now…now it's just too painful to.

He knows that they won't abandon him anymore. They'll do worse. They'll worry, they'll make him stay behind and he can't do that when they're so close to finding the culprit. As egotistical as it sounds, he knows that they need him in the TV world. With twelve Personae all to himself he's not just their Leader, he's their biggest powerhouse. And somehow, he just knows that he has to be the one to end this. He just hopes that his body will hold out until then. So he keeps his mouth shut.

Besides, they're already making themselves sick worrying about Nanako and Dojima who are in the hospital, who actually have a chance of survival (unlike him). Telling his friends now risks exposing the truth to the two of them and he can't let them worry about anything other than their own recovery. Worrying about Souji would just be an exercise in futility. He just has to pull it together for a little longer. Just a little longer.

Souji asks himself sometimes, if after they've caught the culprit, after his family (his real family) is out of the hospital, if he'll them the truth then. Maybe. Probably. They deserve the truth. How hypocritical of him, to be searching for the truth yet hiding something so vital from those closest to you.

"Senpai, are you alright?" his vision swims as he glances up at the voice. Kanji, his mind supplies a little later. He's been getting so sluggish nowadays. He glances around to find all of their concerned eyes on him.

"Zoned out there on us, partner," Yosuke tells him.

"Sorry," he winces. "Guess I'm just a little…tired."

"Are you still worrying about Nanako-chan?" Chie nods sympathetically with a pucker between her eyes.

Is it selfish of him, he wonders. Is what he's doing a kindness to them or a cruelty?

"Yeah," he lies easily, rubbing his face. Is he a terrible person for being relieved that he can blame his sallowness, his dark circles, his rapid weight loss on Nanako and Dojima?

"I'm sure Nanako-chan will be better in no time," Yukiko chimes in enthusiastically, always eager to get their minds off of unpleasantness. "We were just talking about going to the beach with her once she's better. Of course it might have to wait a while. We could do it next summer…"

"But Senpai won't be there!" Rise protests loudly, her bottom lip jutting out petulantly.

"Don't be stupid," Yosuke rolls his eyes. "He's going to visit obviously. Aren't you?" He looks worried all of a sudden and they all turn to look at him expectantly.

It takes Souji all of his strength to summon up a smile. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

He wants more time.

* * *

 **A/N:** My exams are coming up but once they've ended, I hope to continue this piece. Lately, I seem to saying that about all of my works. Well I hope you guys enjoyed this!


	2. Symptom

He should have realized that he couldn't keep this up forever. The truth has a funny way of coming out.

The last thing he remembers seeing is the fog in the entrance of the TV world blurring into his eyes despite the glasses still perched on his nose. The last thing he remembers seeing is Rise's shrill shriek of 'Senpai!'

When he comes to, he doesn't immediately open his eyes. They feel far too heavy to lift up and the back of his head is painfully sore. Instead he focuses on his other senses. He can hear a rhythmic beeping sound and his nose is filling up with the sterile smell of anaesthetic. Recently he's become very familiar with both of these things.

God damn it. The hospital, he's in the hospital. And he can guess exactly why he ended up here. He doesn't want to open his eyes anymore; he doesn't want to face the inevitable barrage of questions they're going to throw his way. He doesn't want to look at the hurt in their eyes. Or worse: pity. God damn it all.

 _That's right,_ something whispers in his mind _, just give up, let go. If you lie here long enough, maybe you'll die without ever waking up. Painless, right?_

At those words Souji's eyes fly open, his heart hammering in his chest. He blinks against the brightness and swallows hard, trying to ground himself into reality, to regain his composure.

 _You've never had a Shadow_ , he reminds himself harshly. _And you're not in the TV world right now._

But the sense of foreboding doesn't leave him and neither do the words in his mind. Let go, let go, let go. So easy…he wouldn't have to see the pain in their faces, he wouldn't have to hold the team together or take responsibility for them…

Souji would have snorted if he had the energy. Yeah right. He knows that that's not an option anymore. It might have been, once upon a time when his routine had consisted of school, cram school, the library and then coming home to an empty house. Not now. Now, he's going to fight for every last second he has.

"Oh, you're up!" a nurse comes into view from the left, obviously having finished fussing over some other patient. "You had a pretty nasty fall."

"I fell?" he asks hoarsely. He's parched, he realizes all of a sudden, and his lips feel like sand-paper. Fell huh? So that's what the throbbing in his head is.

"Well, technically," the nurse answers amicably as she pours him a glass of water from the bedside table before he could even ask. She must be used to this sort of thing. "You fainted. Exhaustion, most likely. But you still hit your head on the way down."

Souji sits up and gratefully accepts the glass. As soon as he is finished, her face takes on a business-like aura.

"Seta-kun, right? You used to work here at night? Uehara-san had a lot of good things to say about you."

Despite everything Souji manages a smile. "I'll bet she did."

The nurse grins conspiratorially as well, before sobering up. "You're uncle has been informed of this, of course. It seems that he was not aware of your condition."

Just like that, his grin is gone. Souji groans and grinds the heel of his palm into one of his eyes to ease the pain that is gradually building in his head. Dojima's in the hospital himself. _Nanako's in the hospital._ His uncle can't afford to be worrying about anything else.

"He was in quite a bit of panic, understandably. So we had to contact your parents and they explained the situation to him. Dojima-san has quite the temper. He raised hell until we had your medical files transferred-"

"How long was I out?" Souji interrupts incredulously. Medical files? Already? Had they contacted his doctor in the city?

"A little over a day," she replies, looking sympathetic. "Lot can happen in a day. Anyway I've paged your doctor and- oh, here he comes."

She moves aside to make room for a white-haired and severe-looking man, a no-nonsense sort of person. He gives clipped statement, makes short notes and speaks with brevity. But he's not unkind. At least Souji doesn't think so.

"So you refused treatment?" the doctor asks and Souji nods tiredly. "Are you certain that you won't change your mind now?"

"At this point? I'm pretty sure," he states firmly and waits for something more. Platitudes or persuasion. Raised eyebrows at his decision. A 'don't you see what this means?' But it doesn't come. The doctor sees him looking and, perhaps guessing his thought process, shrugs as if to say 'do as you will'. Souji doesn't know why but his shoulders sag with relief at that action. To him, acceptance seems inexplicably kind, the kindest reaction he's received yet. Inaba never stops surprising him.

"We're going to keep you overnight, just in case but there's nothing terribly wrong. Aside from the obvious," the doctor smiles a little wryly. Black humour. Souji can appreciate that. "Just try and take it easy from now on. Your body can't take a lot of strain."

"Okay," Souji agrees. Take it easy. Right. Tell that to the Shadows.

"Speaking of overnight, your friends are here," the doctor continues with a combination of amusement and exasperation. "They've practically been camping out in the waiting room since you got admitted. We probably couldn't get right of them if we tried."

Something of Souji's emotions must have shown on his face because the doctor's smile falters. "You don't have to meet with them right now," he says seriously. "If you don't feel up to it I could-"

"No!" Souji's voice nearly cracks. "No, I'd like to see them, all of them. Please," he adds hopefully.

The doctor looks unconvinced but nods at the nurse anyway before taking his leave. The nurse fluffs up his pillows before smiling concernedly down at him. "I'll show them in then, okay?"

And with that she leaves him alone with his thoughts. It's a dangerous place to be in.

He feels like crumpling again as soon as she's gone. _Tired. He's so, so tired_. He doesn't doubt that if he were to close his eyes this instant, he would nod off immediately. What he wonders is when he'll wake up again. There's a bone-deep weariness inside him, weighing him down. And it's such an effort, he thinks, to drag himself out of bed. It's an effort to wake up, to talk, to eat, _to breathe_. Sometimes, it seems like too much effort to even _exist_.

And that's why he needs to see them right. Because they remind him that he can't just give and lie around, waiting for death. They remind him that it's worth the effort. Yosuke's crude jokes, Chie's inane chatter, Naoto's attempts at being above it all and Kanji's efforts in turning into a gentleman. Yukiko's poisonous cooking, Rise's over-the-top flirting and Teddie's hero-worship-

 _Nanako's cheery 'Big bro!'_

-and so much more that he's found here since he's moved.

Once, he might have been content to wait for his death in an empty house, preparing meals for a family that's never coming home and then eating it cold and waiting for the next day. The thought makes him cringe now.

 _He wants to stay alive_. It's a different kind of ache from that monotonous depression from before- this reminder that he'll never get as much time as he wants but as hard as it is, _he still wants to stay alive_. For just as long as he can.

He shakes his head, hoping to clear his mind but all it does is worsen the pain. He can feel his thoughts tumbling into one another, turning into a slurred mess. He can't be this disoriented. He's the Leader after all. They depend on him. And he has to make them see that they can still depend on him.

He raises his head as the door opens and tries not to feel like a cornered animal.

* * *

 **A/N:** So I ended up deciding to continue this because the idea just wouldn't leave my head. It's going to branch out into different POVs soon, to show how everyone's dealing with this. The chapters will probably be on the short side since I'm posting this in the kink meme as well and I hate cluttering up that space. Anyway, hope you guys liked it!


	3. Revelation

They are all very quiet as they file in, uncharacteristically so. They stare at him like they can't quite believe he's there. Stare at him as though they've seen a ghost. Just as Souji thinks that he's the one who has to initiate a conversation-

"You're dying," Yosuke's voice sounds accusatory and he's glaring at Souji while the others simply look lost. But Souji can't help but notice that they flinch away when Yosuke speaks, as if they'd rather not hear that word. Wants and wishes don't make anything less true, however. Souji knows this from experience.

"Yes, I am," he admits softly, turning to look at the frayed edges of the bed cover. He can hear Rise let out a wrenched sob, he can hear Teddie's soft whimper. He closes his eyes so that he won't be tempted to look.

"How long have you known?" Yosuke lets out a growl.

In a way Souji's grateful for the way Yosuke's reacting. Anger is much easier to deal with than heart break. So he forces himself to look at Yosuke. It's a mistake. Beneath his rage and betrayal Souji can still see the fear and the hurt in his eyes. And he knows that he's the reason for it. He'd never wanted to worry them. After years of feeling like a burden on his parents, he'd never wanted to feel that way with his friends.

"Before I came to Inaba," his voice is soft. "I considered it for some time before deciding that I wouldn't seek medical treatment. And then I came here. The rest is pretty much history."

"So every time we were in the TV, this whole time you were-" Yukiko breaks off, her voice quavering. Souji nods regretfully.

"Stupid!" Rise bursts into tears and stamps her foot on the ground. "Stupid, stupid, stupid Senpai! Why-why didn't you tell us? Do you know what it felt like when you wouldn't wake up and nothing we did- spells or anything- what if you had, what if right then you had-" she dissolves into tears, burying her face in her hands.

Died. Why can't you just say the word?

"…If you think about it, I'm risking no more than any of you are. Probably less." The words are out before he can stop them. He speaks without thinking and it's the wrong thing to say.

"That's not the same thing and you know it!" Kanji explodes.

"Kanji-kun please!" Yukiko implores. "We're in a hospital!"

"No but he's got a point," Chie insists, moving to sit gingerly at the edge of his bed. All of their eyes are puffy, he realizes guiltily. He wonders how many tears they've shed on his account.

"You never told us," Chie says. "And Dojima-san says that he didn't know either. And we just…we…"

"What Chie-Senpai means to say is this," Naoto finally speaks. So far, she'd been lagging behind looking at the ground. Teddie is the same, not saying a word. Now she's finally at the forefront and her expression is fierce. "We want to know about it. We want to talk this over. Please."

We want to know about _you_. We want _you_ to talk to us. Souji supposes that they've finally realized that they don't know half as much about him as he does about them. He still doesn't feel much like sharing but he owes them this.

"There's not much to talk about," he spreads his hands in a sign of surrender, trying to maintain an aura of reassurance. "I already told you. I was diagnosed before I came to Inaba. If you're asking me why I refused treatment, it's because there's no cure. All the treatments are experimental and-" he almost talks about his parents then, almost tells them what they thought of this. But old habits die hard and he bites back the words. "And I decided that lying in a hospital bed while I slowly decayed is no way to die."

There's a pause following his words where the team seems to mull it over. Exhaustion looms over Souji once more and he knows that he could send them away now. There's nothing more to talk about, nothing to do. The truth can't be changed.

"Senpai please don't be upset," Naoto starts and she's doing that thing again where she tries to appear older than she is, where she tries to be strong. "I have to ask. Do you have a preference on how to die?"

That's the last thing he had expected to hear. "What?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yosuke demands as well.

"What I mean is this," her voice grows smaller but in the oppressive silence of the room it might as well be a foghorn. "You knew your state of health; you refused to tell us about it thereby preventing us from taking any precautions for it. And you just said you don't want to die in a hospital bed. All of that makes me wonder if-"

Souji's not stupid. He's smarter than average really. So he gets what she's trying to say before she can even phrase it.

"Naoto!" his voice is alarmingly loud, like the crack of a whip and he sees her flinch but he can't care enough to lower his voice. "I'm not suicidal! Is that why you think I'm doing this? To what, die honourably?"

That's just the stupidest fucking thing Souji's ever heard. And it hurts, feels worse than a Shadow's blow, worse than the first time he'd been given the news of his impending death- the fact that they could misunderstand him so thoroughly.

"I just thought-"

"I don't want to die!" the words burst out of his mouth and all at once his chest feels heavier. His voice cracks as he says, "I can't express to you how _badly_ I want…to not die…"

The broken looks on their faces is probably something he's going to remember for the rest of his life (not that that's going to be hard to do). He feels drawn too tight like stretched out strings that are just about to snap and his eyes are blurring up again. He swears to God, if he faints again right now-

"Sensei," Teddie finally speaks and his voice comes out as whimper. "Sensei, you're…"

Oh. He's crying. That hasn't happened in a while. That hasn't happened since he…he doesn't even remember. He raises his hand up to brush them away but instead his hand lingers over his eyes, hiding his face from view. God, can't this day just be over?

He can feel the weight of the bed shifting and suddenly, a pair of arms is wrapping around his shoulders, hugging him from the side. From the smell of cheap cologne he can tell it's Teddie. Before he knows it there's someone on his other side too and then he's being drawn into the world's most awkward group hug.

"I'm sorry," Naoto's voice sound far-off. "I'm sorry, I was just-" she doesn't finish.

Souji opens his eyes. They're all crowded around his bed, cramped into the small space. Concern, he sees it on their faces, plain as day. Fear, uncertainty. And love, so much of it, underlying it all. It's hard to stay mad at the people in his life who _care so much._

"I need to know Senpai," Naoto doesn't meet his eyes but he sees her fists clench into the sheets. "Why are we still going into the TV?"

"That's right!" Chie seems stunned. "We caught the killer! We caught Namatame!"

"I thought it was just fun y'know?" Kanji murmurs. "Like for old time's sake. But if you're really dying…"

"Why would you risk it?" Yosuke finishes.

"Because I think it isn't over," it's good to finally those words out. The tension seems to life away from him at last and he slumps against the headboard. "I don't know, it just feels unresolved. Like we're missing something. So I wanted us to be prepared, to not be out of practice if anything else happened. Not because I want to…" he trails of.

"Okay," Rise sniffs. "Okay. So you really think there's more to this? That it's not over?"

"I can't explain it. It's just a feeling."

He can tell that everyone's thinking about the same thing: the fact that he never had to face his own Shadow, the fact that he can use multiple Personae, the undeniable fact that all of this started when _he_ came to town.

His saving grace comes in the form of the nurse of the nurse who tells them that they have five minutes to clear out since visiting hours are nearly over.

"We should be going," Yukiko murmurs. "Souji-kun needs his rest." And we need time, she doesn't say. We need time to process this, to comprehend what this really means. Souji sighs.

"That would be good." As they file out of the room one by one, he can't help but say, "I'm sorry." He's not sure what he's sorry for. For being sick? For refusing treatment? Or for not telling them? Thankfully no one else seems to know what to do with his admission either and they don't address it.

The last to leave is Teddie. He looks completely blank, uncomprehending and Souji remembers that in many ways, he's more of a child than even Nanako. He's new to this whole human business and so far everything had been so new and exciting and fun. It's not fun anymore and Souji hates to be the one that ruined it for him even though he knows that Teddie would have had to face this reality sooner or later.

"Sensei," Teddie asks tentatively, "you're not getting better are you?"

"No, I'm not," he admits heavily.

"And Nanako-chan?" he seems fearful.

"Nanako will be fine!" he's quick to respond. "It's not the same disease. Nanako will get better, Teddie. I promise." _She has to_.

Teddie nods and it seems like he wants to say something else for a moment. But then he just shakes his head and leaves with a murmured goodbye. As soon as he is gone Souji collapses. If he had more energy he might have spent the night replaying this conversation over and over again in his mind. As it is, his last thought before unconsciousness claims him is this:

 _I wonder what you guys think of me now?_


End file.
